This isn’t a glossy recap. Just a personal look at what I saw last week in Cleveland — the things that made me pause, smile, and quietly think: this is it.
We were tucked into a nondescript building in the back corner of a lot that even Uber drivers couldn’t find. But inside, I watched this team bring it to life.
That was the goal—empathy for our customers, for the process of making parts, and for each other.
And it showed up everywhere.
I saw people packed into every corner they could find — crouched around laptops, standing machine-side, huddled in the hallways. I saw engineers get a spare desktop mill up and running so one teammate could take it home and show his kids what CNC is all about. Another teammate showed up early to machine aluminum train tracks for his kids — all with Toolpath toolpath automation running on the Brother.
I watched people celebrate mistakes. A galled-up end mill from running without coolant — on purpose — so we could see the machining process more clearly. A chamfer came out wrong because of a chip under a soft jaw that threw the alignment off. And instead of hiding it, we shared it. Talked about it. Learned from it.
This team is not afraid to try things, not afraid to mess up, and definitely not afraid to help each other.
Once we reconnected as people, we shifted into execution. We broke into core working groups — Front End, Engine, and GTM — and got to work on the 18-month plan that carries us through IMTS 2026.
And I mean real work. These weren’t brainstorms or high-level overviews. These teams got in the weeds. They debated constraints, mapped out deliverables, and walked away owning real outcomes.
Every part of this offsite was built around a simple truth — we don’t get to be in the same room every day, so when we are, we make it count.
I saw an exhausted CTO spending time with a customer’s son during a shop hangout when he could have easily ducked out to rest.
I saw an executive team member—one of our most senior—on his hands and knees, taping down wires so no one would trip.
I saw a group of people who care—not just about the product but about each other, about this community, and about getting it right.
This team is passionate about the problem we’re solving. And they’re just as dedicated to supporting each other as they are to serving the machinists who rely on us.
I left that week proud. Not just of what we’re building — but of how we’re building it. And who we’re building it with.
More soon.
— Al